Our annual California visit is drawing to a close. On Saturday, we met my son, David, for lunch and then drove him to the home where he is now staying.

It was good to visit with him as he attempts to put his life back together after addiction.

Yesterday, we took the grandkids for our ritual bookstore visit. We have done this for years. We give them a small allowance ($60 yesterday) to buy books for themselves. I sometimes choose an additional book for each person. Yesterday I supplemented Savannah’s books (which were mystery and crime) with a copy of T. S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats.

I was surprised to see her perusing the poetry section, so I was inspired to add this book to her collection.

For Catherine, I dug up a graphic novel version of L’Engle’s Wrinkle in Time.

She has read the novel but seemed interested in the graphic novel version. She chose YA novels that I didn’t recognize. For Nicholas, I picked out a collection of Kafka short stories.

I’m not sure if it’s the version pictured above. it was a newer translation. I did this because he has expressed some interest in Philip Glass’s piano piece set called Metamorphosis and said he hadn’t read the short story.

I embed this recording because I suspect this is the one that he listens to. His choices for himself included a CD by Gary Clark Jr.  I found this video by him on YouTube.

I was surprised to see that Clark covering this old Beatles tune. Nicholas also chose included House of Leaves by in his choices.

The clerk checking us out approved of this and said it was like The Shining on steriods. I have looked at this book before but haven’t read it. It’s now on my radar since my Grandson is reading it.

In the evening we took Savanah to meet her Mom at their Sunday night Al Anon meeting. The dang GPS went a little haywire and I had to rely on my wits to get us back and forth but we made it.

Opinion is valued more than fact in this digital era | Roy Greenslade | Media | The Guardian

Though I’m on vacation, I am following the news. It seems as though our usually shaky attempt at democracy in the USA is in deep trouble. Too many people are believing the GOP administration’s distortions and tweets from the Oval Office over their own sense of logica and truth. This is bad.

Expert: Trump’s ‘fake news’ media jab at VFW distorts reality | The Kansas City Star

The expert is Jay Rosen. He is worth listening to. Back in April, I read this article and bookmarked it. Helpful but frightening.

New York Times Publisher and Trump Clash Over President’s Threats Against Journalism – The New York Times

Insane.

Worms frozen in permafrost for up to 42,000 years come back to life

Oldest living creatures on earth. Females.

Jay-Z on ‘Rest in Power: The Trayvon Martin Story’ and Activism – The New York Times

upcoming series that would be interesting to see

How Cloudflare Uses Lava Lamps to Guard Against Hackers | WIRED

They provide random info for encrypting.